No Time To Cry

by James Oswald

  ‘Best not to let anyone know we’re here, OK?’

  There’s enough street light filtering in through the window for me to see her face, eyes wide with fear, but she nods once, then goes to the table and collapses into a seat. I chance a quick look in the fridge, the light making me squint. There’s not much in there, and the milk’s more than two weeks out of date. Go figure.

  ‘Whose house is this?’ Izzy asks as I turn my attention to the cupboards. Instant coffee or tea? It’s a difficult decision. At least there’s biscuits.

  ‘My old boss in the Met.’

  ‘Won’t he mind?’ It’s a strange thing to be worried about, given all the other options, but then one of the things they beat into us at Saint Bert’s is consideration for others above ourselves. Not that it sticks with most of the girls.

  ‘Not really. He’s been dead a month now.’

  Izzy says nothing for a while, just looking around Pete’s darkened kitchen. Finally she faces me again. ‘How did you know where to find me? Why were you even looking?’

  ‘As to how, well, that’s a long story.’ I’m not about to tell her or anybody else that it was a wild guess based on an unlikely coincidence. ‘The why’s easier. Your sister asked me to, and then your father threatened to kill me if I carried on.’

  Izzy stares at me in the semi-darkness, her fear turning swiftly to anger. ‘He’s not my father.’

  ‘No. You’re right. He’s not.’ I put two mugs of black coffee and a packet of chocolate Hobnobs on the table, pull out the chair beside her and sit down. Izzy reaches for the biscuits first, fingers fumbling as she rips the packet apart and stuffs one into her face. I watch her eat for a while, cradling my mug as much for something to hold on to as any desire to drink it.

  ‘Do you know who is?’ she asks after a solid two minutes of concentrated munching.

  ‘Yes. Do you?’

  Izzy looks up at me in the half-darkness, and I see her unkempt dark-red hair, thin face and strong jawline. It’s not quite like looking in a mirror, but not far off. She nods, then goes back to the biscuits, pausing only occasionally to slurp down some of her coffee. She doesn’t speak again until they’re all gone and she’s cleaned the inside of the packet with a licked finger.

  ‘So what do we do next?’

  I’m really not sure. My career’s down the drain, my reputation is about to be dragged through the mud, and if the police catch me I’ll be going to jail for a very long time. It’s small beer compared to what Izzy faces if she falls into Roger DeVilliers’ hands again. I saw what was inside the bag Tommy was fetching from the back of the Mercedes, and I’ve no doubt at all who it was intended for.

  ‘Get away from London for a start. Find somewhere safe to hide out. Burntwoods, maybe.’

  Izzy scowls at me. ‘That place? Christ no. They’re all so wet. Hiding away from the world instead of trying to change it. The power they have, the knowledge. They could do so much.’

  I’m surprised by the anger in her voice, but heartened by it too.

  ‘You saw the photos, didn’t you? The video.’ Izzy holds my gaze as she speaks, almost daring me to make something of it.

  ‘Yeah. Clever way to hide them, deleting them off the hard drive and then not using it for anything else. I take it you sent copies to other people though?’

  ‘Not me. Steve Benson. The journalist. He’s the one who found all that stuff in the first place and worked out it was me. He came to school, pretended he was doing a piece on private education in England and how it was adapting to the new rich. Mrs Jennings thought it would be good publicity. Get Saint Bert’s in the paper and the Russians would all start sending their daughters there. She’s probably right.’

  ‘Surely they didn’t let him interview girls alone?’

  ‘No. We were always chaperoned. But he slipped a note to me when no one was looking. Just a web address for a private file storage account. I thought he was coming on to me at first, only he didn’t seem the type.’

  I’m about to ask what she means by that, a habit from my interview training, but then I remember what she’s been through, the years of sexual abuse. Of the two of us, she’s probably got way more experience in these things than I have, even though she’s half my age.

  ‘This file store. Does it still exist?’

  ‘Far as I know. Unless they managed to get the passcode out of him. Blondie told me he was dead.’

  ‘Blondie? Oh, you mean Adrian. And yes, Steve Benson is dead. His body washed up in the Thames.’ I tell Izzy about the initial forensic report, and the news item I saw suggesting suicide.

  ‘Christ. He’s everywhere, isn’t he?’

  I don’t need to ask who ‘he’ is. ‘That’s what being a billionaire gets you these days. He’s probably got film footage of any number of powerful people in compromising situations too. A bit of carrot and a lot of stick.’ I remember Adrian’s words on the train up to Northampton, about how if I did as they wanted, all my troubles would go away.

  The clock on Pete’s cooker glows red, telling me it’s past midnight. ‘Why don’t you get some rest? We’ll have to try and come up with something, but apart from anything else I need to get hold of some cash. I’ll give Charlotte a call first thing.’ I remember my previous stay at her house on Elmstead Road, the late start. ‘Well, maybe not first thing.’

  ‘Why Charlotte? What’s she got to do with any of this?’

  ‘She’s the one who asked me to look for you, remember?’ Something occurs to me then that should have been obvious days ago. ‘She doesn’t know anything about her father, does she.’

  ‘No. He’s very careful about that sort of thing. I think Mum suspects, which is probably why she drinks all the time. Maybe why she fucked your dad, too. Although that might just have been her way of getting some small revenge. Cuckold her husband with his best friend? There’s a certain pleasing symmetry about it. If only she’d been a bit more careful.’

  I can hear the anger rising in Izzy’s tone again. Maybe coffee and Hobnobs wasn’t the best thing to feed her. I’m too wired to sleep either, but we both need rest if we’re going to come at this problem with clear heads. The urge to jump on a train and flee back to Scotland is overwhelming. Sure, they could still find us there, but the distance would be reassuring.

  ‘Look, there’s a spare bedroom upstairs. First on the left. Bathroom’s right next door if you need it. Try not to use a light if you can avoid it, OK?’

  Izzy hauls herself out of her chair. ‘Can’t promise I’ll sleep much, but I’ll try.’ She stops at the door, turns back to face me. ‘Thanks, Constance. For coming to my rescue.’

  ‘Hey, no problem. That’s what sisters do, right?’ She smiles at that, which is good to see. ‘And it’s Con, by the way. Only my mother calls me Constance.’

  43

  I hear light thumping noises upstairs for a few minutes, the flush of the toilet, and then everything falls quiet. Pete’s house creaks and groans as all old houses do, and beyond it the city’s mute roar reassures me that millions of people are going about their lives untouched by Roger DeVilliers and his sick games. Lucky them. I’ve still no idea how I’m going to extricate myself from this mess, and I’m all too aware that I’m running out of options.

  Through in the living room, I take up my old post in the armchair facing the bay window. The blinds are half closed, just enough for me to see out without people on the street outside being able to see me. The nearest street lamp casts orange slats across one wall, highlighting the pictures and the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It’s stopped ticking since Pete’s not been here to wind it, so I get up again, and pick it up. It’s too dark to see the inscription to Pete’s grandad engraved in the silver, but there’s enough light to open up the back and get the key out. There’s something else in there besides, a slim roll of paper that turns out to be several hundred quid in twen
ty-pound notes.

  ‘Pete, you beauty.’ I shove the money in my pocket, wind the clock and settle back into the armchair to its gentle ticking.

  ‘Well. It’s not as if I’m going to need it now.’

  I’m unsurprised, if a little guilty, to hear his voice and see the shadowy shape in the other armchair across the room. There’s something very calming about his presence; I feel as if nothing can harm me while he’s around.

  ‘I’m always around, Con. Or not. Depends on your point of view.’

  ‘Really? And here’s me thought you just turned up to annoy me when I’m trying to get some sleep.’ I pitch my voice low, barely a whisper, all too aware that Izzy is upstairs and most likely staring sleeplessly at the ceiling in the spare bedroom. The last thing I need is for her to think I’ve lost my mind.

  ‘She’s a tough one. Has to be, to get through what she’s been through and not be an utter basket case.’

  ‘Can’t help that DeVilliers is still out there. And he holds all the cards right now too.’

  ‘Does he? I thought you still had video evidence of his crimes, a witness who can identify him. That sounds like more than nothing.’

  I think about the hard drive, tucked away in the laptop case in my bag in the back of Aunt Felicity’s car. Have they found that yet? Have they hurt Aunt Felicity? I should never have involved her in the first place. I should call, make sure she’s OK.

  ‘Think, Con. Stop just reacting and try to piece it all together.’

  I’m already on my feet, halfway to the hall and the phone. Chances are it’s still connected and working. Pete’s words drop me straight back into my seat. Calling anyone from this number is a risk, but calling Aunt Felicity is just foolish. Even if she’s fine, they’re bound to be monitoring her line. It only takes a few seconds to trace a landline to landline call if you’ve got access to the sort of resources my old department has.

  ‘Gordon Bailey.’

  ‘That’s more like the Constance Fairchild I remember. You think he’s bent, right?’

  ‘Think? I know he’s bent. Just can’t believe he got away with it for so long. He shot you in the fucking head, Pete.’

  ‘And why do you think he did that, eh? Pretty drastic, don’t you think? Unless we were on to him.’

  It seems at the same time far-fetched and yet all too plausible. ‘If he was under enough pressure. Maybe the noose was tightening and he needed a way out.’

  ‘What about that operation though? You can’t believe it was a coincidence we’d be trying to break up the same mob he was involved with, right? What chance of that?’

  As he talks, so Pete’s questions begin to sound more and more like my own misgivings voiced aloud. I was a minor part of the operation, right from the start. I ran the surveillance side of things, except for that one time when I’d been sent off on a training course. Dan Penny took over in my absence, and the next day Pete was dead. I’ve not really had time to sit still and think about that until now.

  ‘So the operation was a deliberate set-up to smoke out Bailey? To get to the bottom of corruption in the team?’

  Pete says nothing, but I imagine his shadowy form tilting its head to one side.

  ‘And then Roger DeVilliers comes sniffing around because I’ve started looking for Izzy. He wants to get some dirt on me to use as leverage, ends up uncovering something far more serious. But how the hell did he get hold of that video footage in the first place?’

  I stare up at the ceiling as if the answers are written there, but all I can see are the stripes of orange and black cast by the street lamps through the half-closed blinds. A flickering in the light disrupts the pattern. It’s not unusual for cars to come down the street, even this late at night, but something about the way it moves sets me on edge. I get up as quietly as I can, creep towards the window and peer through the blinds. Two cars have double-parked about fifty yards up the road, one behind the other. They’re not taxis, and there are no lights on in the house immediately alongside them. I’d thought we were safe, but of course bloody Dan Penny found me here the day after Pete died. If they’ve been casting the net as wide as possible to find me and Izzy, it was only a matter of time before someone remembered this place.

  ‘Got to go, Pete,’ I whisper as I turn from the window, but the shadows have shifted, and now the chair sits empty.

  As if I was only talking to myself all this time.

  As if he was never there.

  ‘Wake up, Izzy. We need to get out of here.’

  I daren’t turn any lights on, but there’s enough of a street glow filtering in through the spare-room window to see the tousled mess of the bed. Izzy’s not in it though, she’s sitting on a small chair in the far corner.

  ‘Wasn’t asleep. Who were you talking to?’

  It’s too late, I’m too tired and the adrenaline is making it hard to think straight, so I just answer her truthfully. ‘Pete’s ghost. He had some very interesting ideas about why all this is happening.’

  ‘Pete?’ Izzy stands, fully dressed.

  ‘The man whose house this used to be. My former boss, Detective Inspector Copperthwaite.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I don’t know if this means she believes me or believes I’ve finally gone mad. It doesn’t really matter. ‘Why do we need to leave? We’ve only been here, like, an hour?’

  ‘There’s two cars parked a way up the street I don’t like the look of. And they might have guessed I’d come here.’

  ‘OK. Where are we going to go?’ Izzy moves slowly towards me and the door. I want to tell her to hurry, but equally I want to be as quiet as possible. At least for now.

  ‘I’m not sure. Not got many options left, to be honest. Away from here is the first priority. Come on. We’re going out the back.’

  She follows me downstairs and into the kitchen. There’s a door out onto the small garden. A gate in the high brick wall at the back leads onto a narrow lane. There’s two bolts in the gate, but also a mortice lock. Luckily I know where Pete kept the key. I hand it to Izzy as I open the back door.

  ‘Go down there. Listen carefully to make sure there’s no one on the other side, then slide back the bolts but don’t unlock the gate. I’ll be right with you.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ She looks at me with wide eyes, gripping the key in nervous fingers.

  ‘To the front door. I’m going to reset the alarm. If I remember right, I’ll have fifteen seconds to get back here and close the door behind me.’ I don’t tell her that I want to have another look to see what the two cars are doing. I’ll feel a bit foolish if they’re gone. Izzy just nods once, then steps out into the night.

  At the front door, I gently ease the bolt into position, hang the security chain back and deadlock the Yale. Peering out the spyhole, I can see the two cars still parked a way up the road. I wonder what they’re doing. Waiting for backup? Circling around the building to come at us from both sides? I quickly reset the alarm, wincing as it beeps loud enough to be heard in Northamptonshire and lights up like it’s the fifth of November. No time to worry about that now. I dash through the house and out the back door, closing it behind me as a London silence falls once more.

  ‘Can’t hear anyone out there,’ Izzy whispers to me as I join her at the gate. I want to jump up and peer over the wall, but it’s too high for one thing, and set with broken glass for another. The key’s in the lock, so I ease it round and open the gate just a fraction, leaning hard into it to stop someone from pushing the other way.

  There’s no one in the lane. I step through swiftly, Izzy close behind, then pull the gate back shut again, lock it and slip the key into my pocket.

  ‘This way.’ I point to the end of the lane, where it opens onto a street at the far end from where the cars were parked. ‘Keep to the shadows.’

  It’s hard to walk slowly and keep as quiet as possible. The lane
is strewn with rubbish, and we have to tread carefully around every set of bins. Only the foxes see us though, and they don’t care enough even to stop foraging.

  I begin to wonder whether my paranoia has finally got the better of me. What if those two cars had a perfectly innocent reason to be double-parked there? A large party getting a couple of Ubers home, maybe. Or even a lift to the airport for a very early flight. By the time we reach the road’s end, I’ve almost convinced myself that I’m just an idiot. Then light floods the lane behind us and an alarm starts wailing into the night. I grab Izzy’s hand, pull her into the shadows behind a set of wheelie bins, peer around to see whether someone’s seen us or not. I can’t see a person, just a security light bathing the lane outside Pete’s house. Bless him and his police-approved alarm system. I squeeze Izzy’s hand slightly, pull her close.

  ‘Run!’ I bark, and we pelt off into the night.

  44

  Dawn creeps slowly into the sky as we walk across the city. I don’t know London like a native, certainly not the parts around Pete’s house, and Izzy’s even less clued up about the bits beyond Soho and Covent Garden than I am. Country girls, the two of us. I’m tempted more than once to flag down a taxi. I’ve got Pete’s cash, after all. But this far out and this time of the morning, there don’t seem to be any.

  By the time we hit the river, the commuter stream has begun to trickle and the coffee shops are opening. We’re both tired, weary and scared, but somehow the fact that we’ve escaped again is reassuring. We’re still free even if we’re running on empty, and even if it sounds corny, we’ve got each other.

  ‘Where’re we going?’ Izzy asks as we merge with a line of office workers pouring out of Embankment Tube station and slouching towards the Strand. It’s the first thing she’s said in well over an hour.